


Echo

by CringePhase



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers, Fake Character Death, Gen, Nightmares, Not cest in the slightest they are family, Oops! All Projection!, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recurring Nightmares, Sad Sunday, Short One Shot, Trauma, destruction of home and property, nightmares about dying, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26471935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CringePhase/pseuds/CringePhase
Summary: For the sad sunday prompt: Nightmares.But it ended up moreso becoming an exploration of PTSD, whoops.Mikey struggles with the aftermath of the lair collapse.
Relationships: Donatello & Leonardo & Michelangelo & Raphael (TMNT), Michelangelo & Splinter (TMNT)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 63





	Echo

**Author's Note:**

> This got a little more personal than I intended. Well.... Might as well use this cursed knowledge for something, amiright?

You never forget the sound of the ceiling falling upon your family. That was one thing Hamato Michelangelo will always be sure of.

It cracks, crashes, destroys and, finally, settles. And it begins again.

And again.

And again.

It echoes in ways the youngest was never prepared to handle. It bounced through the sewers they call home. None of them had yet to use the past tense for the rubble they were forced to leave behind. It is home. It always will be. Despite this, their home cracked, crashed, and the destruction echoed and traveled throughout the sewer, squeezing into the tank the survivors took to escape--and that’s what they were, survivors--and nestled its own home deep into the box turtle’s subconscious.

And it echoes. And it cracks, crashes, and destroys in the world taking place behind his eyelids. The rubble falls, blanketing debris and dust onto the home they had created under the city they knew and loved. It is a saving grace that he is always holding onto a brother in these echoes. But grace is a hand covered in rusty nails and his brothers aren’t always a complete set.

It’s a common instance that Leo slips through the hold on him and vanishes in the same rubble that took their Gram-Gram, the Nightmare running amok in their home. The often jovial slider fights their big brother, who already has his hands full, and he slips through Raph’s fingers. And he slips through the cracks, like the sewage pouring down from the ceiling. And he slips away, gone. Mikey remembers screaming, but he’s never really sure from where.

Sometimes, it’s an instance that Donnie is nowhere to be found. Mikey looks around wildly for him, but he loses sight of his brother after the Nightmare slams him into a wall. Was Donnie wearing his Battle Shell? Mikey can never remember. He clings to Raph as he drags Leo to safety. Usually, in the nightmares without Donnie, they all perish to the crashing, the cracking, and become one with the destruction themselves. Sometimes, they make it out. Mikey can never tell which ending is worse.

In the instance without their leader, none of them ever make it out. Well, maybe Leo or Don make it out, but Mikey never does. He loses sight of his brother, and he hears the cracking, the...yeah, you get it. Water bursts from the pipes above and wash over him just as harsh as the terror and he’s paralyzed by the fear, by the grief, because his unstoppable untouchable invincible big brother is gone. And if Raph doesn’t get a future, none of them do. Sometimes a different brother picks him off the ground and attempts to carry him to safety. But if Raph doesn’t get a future…

They were "lucky" to have stuck together--they were "lucky" to have survived. Sometimes, Mikey doesn't feel lucky. If they were truly lucky, this wouldn't have happened to them at all. If he were truly lucky, he would sleep in peace, in a hammock that felt like his.

And it echoes. Again. And again. And again.

Not every night, it can't risk becoming too predictable. Too safe. But it echoes. The dust of the trauma settles upon his brain, and maybe one day he will be cleansed from it all but for now it just sticks to the back of his mind, always there. It’s beginning wasn’t immediate, there was a lot to process that took up precious space where the echo wanted to check in. No, it began when they returned.

Donnie had led the return to Old Home. Perhaps that was part of his grief. They all tagged along as much as they could while also settling into New Home, scouring through the remains of their home for anything that may have survived. Even Draxum lent a hand--er, vine--every once in a while….well, once.

Stepping into the rubble of your beloved home, sweet, home, days after the loss is another feeling Mikey will never forget. By some kind of miracle (“Or by the incredible engineering masterpiece that is the ‘Home Protocol Fail-safe’ leftover from the Smart Lair Project--everybody say Thank You, Donnie!”), the city above their heads had not fallen into their living room, and they were free to step over the slabs of concrete and the piles of loose dirt that fell through the cracks. Despite their luck, if it could be called that, a lot of debris had still coated their home.

Concrete, Mikey learns, is very dusty. And the dust clings, and it buries, and it settles. Concrete, Mikey knew, echoes really well.

Again, and...yeah.

So they search, and they lament, and sometimes they find something amazing that made it through the trauma. Sometimes they leave realizing they were the things that were amazing and strong. That they were survivors. And lucky survivors clean their hands and clothes and return to New Home with what they can find and carry. And they exist, they settle. And then they sleep.

And it echoes.

”M-Mikey?”

And it cracks.

"Guys, a little help--!!"

“Mikey, hey!”

Crashes.

”C’mon, ‘Angelo, breathe.”

Destro--

“Mikey you gotta wake up!!!”

Mikey’s eyes snap open and he doesn’t remember sitting up, but he’s hunched over and he can’t breathe and--

"Mike, hey, Mikey, it’s ok you’re ok.” There’s a gentle hand on his shell grounding him. “Everyone’s okay, little man, we’re all okay. Breathe with me, alright? Just breathe.”

Mikey looks up at Raphael desperately and takes a ragged breath, but it’s his, and his brother is here, and he can see the shadows of his other brothers behind him. They all made it, and they saved the world, so he breathes, keeps breathing. His room is still so empty, it echoes.

Raph sends a sad look to Donnie on his left, and Leo is already standing up and jogging to the New Hallway. Donnie shoots a glance at the retreating brother before sitting beside the youngest, pulling him into a one-armed hug while his other hand pulls out his tablet, ready to use.

"Wanna talk to Raph about it, or watch speedpaints?” Donnie offers as Raphael sits behind them both, laying his chin on Mikey’s head. They knew the answer.

"....speedpaints, please.” Mikey whimpers. They have spoken about it. It was nothing new.

Nothing but an echo.

Leo returns with their father, and Mikey’s tears come all over again. Raphael easily lets him go as he runs and meets the old rat halfway, falling down to his height and burying himself in the comforting fur. It smells like dad. Not concrete, not dust, not dirt.

It smells like home. Not Old Home, not New Home. It just smelled like Home.

They combine their beds and pillows and blankets to create a nest, and they pile in like the Mad Dogs they are. Raph lays at the base with Donnie at his side, instinctively clinging to his arm as he sleeps. Leo holds onto Mikey like a teddy bear, burying his face in the younger’s neck to block out the light of the tablet set up with the vacant Battle Shell. Splinter is on Mikey’s other side, being used as a pillow for Mikey. He breathes so loudly, and he snores, but Mikey doesn’t mind.

He smiles as he too drifts.

The room is full; it holds his family. These are the times Mikey actually feels lucky. His heart swells as he listens; snores are breaths taken by the irreplaceable people, the survivors. And they echo.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to do a small fic based around the boys' trauma with their home collapsing, so I picked a character at random and got Mikey. Sorry, Orange child. You yelled in a library, you are now cursed with echos.
> 
> I wrote this like a week ago and totally forgot about it whoops.


End file.
